![Dauntless bomb drop](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Douglas_SBD_Dauntless_dropping_a_bomb%2C_circa_in_1942.jpg)
A dive bomber is a
bomber
A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped ...
aircraft that
dive
Diving most often refers to:
* Diving (sport), the sport of jumping into deep water
* Underwater diving, human activity underwater for recreational or occupational purposes
Diving or Dive may also refer to:
Sports
* Dive (American football), a ...
s directly at its targets in order to provide greater accuracy for the
bomb
A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the Exothermic process, exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-t ...
it drops. Diving towards the target simplifies the bomb's trajectory and allows the pilot to keep visual contact throughout the bomb run. This allows attacks on point targets and ships, which were difficult to attack with conventional
level bomber
High level bombing (also called high-altitude bombing) is a tactic of dropping bombs from bomber aircraft in level flight at high altitude. The term is used in contrast to both World War II-era dive bombing and medium or low level bombing.
Pri ...
s, even ''en masse''.
After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the rise of
precision-guided munition
A precision-guided munition (PGM, smart weapon, smart munition, smart bomb) is a guided munition intended to precisely hit a specific target, to minimize collateral damage and increase lethality against intended targets. During the First Gul ...
s and improved
anti-aircraft defences—both fixed gunnery positions and fighter interception—led to a fundamental change in dive bombing. New weapons, such as rockets, allowed for better accuracy from smaller dive angles and from greater distances. They could be fitted to almost any aircraft, including
fighters
Fighter(s) or The Fighter(s) may refer to:
Combat and warfare
* Combatant, an individual legally entitled to engage in hostilities during an international armed conflict
* Fighter aircraft, a warplane designed to destroy or damage enemy warplan ...
, improving their effectiveness without the inherent vulnerabilities of dive bombers, which needed air superiority to operate effectively.
Method
A dive bomber dives at a steep angle, normally between 45 and 60 degrees or even up to a near vertical dive of 80 degrees with the
Junkers Ju 87
The Junkers Ju 87 or Stuka (from ''Sturzkampfflugzeug'', "dive bomber") was a German dive bomber and ground-attack aircraft. Designed by Hermann Pohlmann, it first flew in 1935. The Ju 87 made its combat debut in 1937 with the Luftwaffe's Con ...
, and thus requires an abrupt pull-up after dropping its bombs. This puts great strains on both the pilot and aircraft. It demands an aircraft of strong construction, with some means to slow its dive. This limited the class to
light bomber
A light bomber is a relatively small and fast type of military bomber aircraft that was primarily employed before the 1950s. Such aircraft would typically not carry more than one ton of ordnance.
The earliest light bombers were intended to dro ...
designs with ordnance loads in the range of although there were larger examples. The most famous examples are the
Junkers Ju 87 ''Stuka'', which was widely used during the opening stages of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the
Aichi D3A
The Aichi D3A Type 99 Carrier Bomber ( Allied reporting name "Val") is a World War II carrier-borne dive bomber. It was the primary dive bomber of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and was involved in almost all IJN actions, including the at ...
''"Val"'' dive bomber, which sank more
Allied
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
warships during the war than any other
Axis
An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis
*Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinate ...
aircraft, and the
Douglas SBD Dauntless
The Douglas SBD Dauntless is a World War II American naval scout plane and dive bomber that was manufactured by Douglas Aircraft from 1940 through 1944. The SBD ("Scout Bomber Douglas") was the United States Navy's main carrier-based scout/div ...
, which sank more Japanese shipping than any other allied aircraft type. The SBD Dauntless helped win the
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The U.S. Navy under Adm ...
, was instrumental in the victory at the
Battle of the Coral Sea
The Battle of the Coral Sea, from 4 to 8 May 1942, was a major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and naval and air forces of the United States and Australia. Taking place in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, the batt ...
, and fought in every US battle involving carrier aircraft.
![SBD Dauntless El Segundo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/SBD_Dauntless_El_Segundo.JPG)
An alternative technique, glide-bombing, allowed the use of heavier aircraft, which faced far greater difficulties in recovering from near-vertical approaches, though it required greater use of sophisticated bombsights and aiming techniques, by a specialised member of aircrews, namely a
bombardier/bomb aimer
A bombardier or bomb aimer is the crew member of a bomber aircraft responsible for the targeting of aerial bombs. "Bomb aimer" was the preferred term in the military forces of the Commonwealth, while "bombardier" (from the French word for "bom ...
. The crews of multi-engined dive-bombers, such as variants of the
Junkers Ju 88
The Junkers Ju 88 is a German World War II ''Luftwaffe'' twin-engined multirole combat aircraft. Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works (JFM) designed the plane in the mid-1930s as a so-called ''Schnellbomber'' ("fast bomber") that would be too fast ...
and
Petlyakov Pe-2
The Petlyakov Pe-2 (russian: Петляков Пе-2) was a Soviet twin-engine dive bomber used during World War II. One of the outstanding tactical attack aircraft of the war,Ethell 1996, p. 152. it also proved successful as a heavy fighter, as ...
, frequently used this technique. The heaviest aircraft to have dive-bombing included in its design and development, the four-engined
Heinkel He 177
The Heinkel He 177 ''Greif'' (Griffin) was a long-range heavy bomber flown by the ''Luftwaffe'' during World War II. The introduction of the He 177 to combat operations was significantly delayed, by both problems with the development of its ...
, also utilised a glide-bombing approach; the requirement that the He 177 be able to dive/glide-bomb delayed its development and impaired its overall performance.
Dive bombing was most widely used before and during World War II; its use declined during the war, when its vulnerability to enemy fighters became apparent. In the post-war era, this role was replaced with a combination of improved and automated
bombsight
A bombsight is a device used by military aircraft to drop bombs accurately. Bombsights, a feature of combat aircraft since World War I, were first found on purpose-designed bomber aircraft and then moved to fighter-bombers and modern tactical ...
s, larger weapons and even
nuclear warhead
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
s that greatly reduced the need for accuracy, and finally by
precision guided weapon
A precision-guided munition (PGM, smart weapon, smart munition, smart bomb) is a guided munition intended to precisely hit a specific target, to minimize collateral damage and increase lethality against intended targets. During the First Gulf ...
s as they became available in the 1960s. Most
tactical aircraft today allow bombing in shallow dives to keep the target visible, but true dive bombers have not been a part of military forces since the start of the jet age.
Accuracy
When released from an aircraft, a bomb carries with it the aircraft's trajectory. In the case of a bomber flying horizontally, the bomb will initially only be travelling forward. This forward motion is opposed by the
drag of the air, so the forward motion decreases over time. Additionally,
gravity
In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...
causes the bomb to accelerate after it is dropped. The combination of these two forces, drag and gravity, results in a complex pseudo-
parabolic trajectory
A trajectory or flight path is the path that an object with mass in motion follows through space as a function of time. In classical mechanics, a trajectory is defined by Hamiltonian mechanics via canonical coordinates; hence, a complete traj ...
.
The distance that the bomb moves forward while it falls is known as its range. If the range for a given set of conditions is calculated, simple
trigonometry
Trigonometry () is a branch of mathematics that studies relationships between side lengths and angles of triangles. The field emerged in the Hellenistic world during the 3rd century BC from applications of geometry to astronomical studies. T ...
can be used to find the angle between the aircraft and the target. By setting the
bombsight
A bombsight is a device used by military aircraft to drop bombs accurately. Bombsights, a feature of combat aircraft since World War I, were first found on purpose-designed bomber aircraft and then moved to fighter-bombers and modern tactical ...
to this "range angle", the aircraft can time the drop of its bombs at the instant when the target is lined up in the sight. This was only effective for "area bombing", however, since the path of the bomb is only roughly estimated. Large formations could drop bombs on an area hoping to hit a specific target, but there was no guarantee of success, and huge areas around the target would also be hit. The advantage to this approach, however, was that it is easy to build such an aircraft and fly it at high altitude, keeping it out of range of ground-based defences.
The horizontal bomber was thus ill-suited for tactical bombing, particularly in close support. Attempts at using high-altitude bombing in near-proximity to troops often ended in tragedy, with bombs both hitting their targets and friendly troops indiscriminately. In attacking shipping, the problems of inaccuracy were amplified by the fact that the target could be moving, and could change its direction between the time that the bombs were released and the time that they arrived. Successful strikes on marine vessels by horizontal bombers were extremely rare. An example of this problem can be seen in the attempts to attack the Japanese carriers using
B-17
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...
s at altitude in the
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The U.S. Navy under Adm ...
, with no hits scored. The
German battleship ''Tirpitz'' was subjected to countless attacks, many while in dock and immobile, but was not sunk until the British brought in enormous
Tallboy bombs to ensure that even a near miss would be effective.
An aircraft diving vertically minimises its horizontal velocity component. When the bomb is dropped, the force of gravity simply increases its speed along its nearly vertical trajectory. The bomb travels a virtually straight line between release and impact, eliminating the need for complex calculations. The aircraft simply aims at the target and releases its bombs. The primary source of error is the effect of wind on the bomb's flight path after release. As bombs are streamlined and heavy, wind has only a slight effect on them and the bomb is likely to fall within its lethal radius of the target.
Bomb sighting becomes trivial, requiring only a straight line of sight to the target. This was simplified as the aircraft was pointed directly at the target, making sighting over the nose much easier. Differences in the path of different bombs due to differing ballistics can be corrected by selecting a standardised bombing altitude and then adjusting the dive angle slightly for each case. As the bomber dives, the aim could be continually adjusted. In contrast, when a horizontal bomber veers offline while approaching the bomb release point, turning to the angle that would correct this also changes the speed of the aircraft over the ground (when there is a wind) and thereby changes the range as well.
In the 1930s and early 1940s, dive bombing was the best method for attacking high-value compact targets, like
bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
s and
ship
A ship is a large watercraft that travels the world's oceans and other sufficiently deep waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research, and fishing. Ships are generally distinguished ...
s, with accuracy. The forces generated when the aircraft levels out at the bottom of the dive are considerable. The drawback of modifying and strengthening an aircraft for near-vertical
dive
Diving most often refers to:
* Diving (sport), the sport of jumping into deep water
* Underwater diving, human activity underwater for recreational or occupational purposes
Diving or Dive may also refer to:
Sports
* Dive (American football), a ...
s was the loss of performance. Aside from the greater strength requirements, during normal horizontal flight, aircraft are normally designed to return to fly straight and level, but when put into a dive the changes in forces affecting the aircraft now cause the aircraft to track across the target unless the pilot applies considerable force to keep the nose down, with a corresponding decrease in accuracy. To compensate, many dive bombers were designed to be trimmed out, either through the use of special dive flaps (such as
Fairey Youngman flaps) or through changes in
tailplane
A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabiliser, is a small lifting surface located on the tail (empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed-wing aircraft such as helicopters and gyroplane ...
trim
Trim or TRIM may refer to:
Cutting
* Cutting or trimming small pieces off something to remove them
** Book trimming, a stage of the publishing process
** Pruning, trimming as a form of pruning often used on trees
Decoration
* Trim (sewing), or ...
that must be readjusted when the dive is completed.
The
Vultee Vengeance
The Vultee A-31 Vengeance was an American dive bomber of World War II, built by Vultee Aircraft. A modified version was designated A-35. The Vengeance was not used operationally by the United States, but was operated as a front-line aircraft by ...
, mostly used by the RAF and RAAF in Burma, was designed to be trimmed for diving, with no lift to distort the dive. The drawback was that it flew nose up in level flight, increasing drag. Failure to re-adjust trim made the aircraft difficult or impossible to pull out of a dive.
[Smith, Peter C. Jungle Dive Bombers at War. John Murray, London, 1987. ]
A dive bomber was vulnerable to low-level
ground fire as it dived towards its target, since it was often headed in a straight line directly towards the defenders. At higher levels, this was less of a problem, as larger
AA (anti-aircraft) shells were fused to explode at specific altitudes, which is impossible to determine while the plane is diving. In addition, most higher-altitude gunners and gunnery systems were designed to calculate the lateral movement of a target; while diving, the target appears almost stationary. Also, many AA mounts lacked the ability to fire directly up, so dive bombers were almost never exposed to fire from directly ahead.
Dive brake
Dive brakes or dive flaps are deployed to slow down an aircraft when in a dive. They often consist of a metal flap that is lowered against the air flow, thus creating drag and reducing dive speed.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, ...
s were employed on many designs to create
drag which slowed the aircraft in its dive and increased accuracy.
Air brakes on modern aircraft function in a similar manner in bleeding off excessive speed.
Origins
It is difficult to establish how dive bombing originated. During
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the
Royal Flying Corps
"Through Adversity to the Stars"
, colors =
, colours_label =
, march =
, mascot =
, anniversaries =
, decorations ...
(RFC) found its biplane two-seat bombers insufficiently accurate in operations on the
Western Front Western Front or West Front may refer to:
Military frontiers
*Western Front (World War I), a military frontier to the west of Germany
*Western Front (World War II), a military frontier to the west of Germany
*Western Front (Russian Empire), a majo ...
. Commanders urged pilots to dive from their cruising altitude to under to have a better chance of hitting small targets, such as gun emplacements and trenches.
[Smith, Peter C. ''Dive Bomber''. Stackpole Books PA. 1982. ] As this exposed the aircraft and crew to destructive ground fire in their unprotected open cockpits, few followed this order. Some recorded altitude at the top and bottom of their dive in log books and in squadron records, but not the steepness of the dive. It was certainly not near-vertical, as these early aircraft could not withstand the stresses of a sustained vertical dive.
[Boyne, Walter J. "The last of the dive bombers". ''Air Force'' magazine, December 2010, Arlingtom VA.]
The
Royal Naval Air Service
The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was the air arm of the Royal Navy, under the direction of the Admiralty's Air Department, and existed formally from 1 July 1914 to 1 April 1918, when it was merged with the British Army's Royal Flying Corps t ...
was bombing the
Zeppelin
A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp ...
sheds in Germany and in occupied Belgium and found it worthwhile to dive onto these sheds to ensure a hit, despite the increased casualties from ground fire. Again, the angle of dive in these attacks was not recorded.
Beginning on 18 June 1918, the
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
(RAF), successor to the RFC, ordered large numbers of the
Sopwith TF.2 Salamander, a single-seat biplane. The "TF" stood for "Trench Fighter", and the aircraft was designed to attack enemy trenches both with
Vickers .303 machine guns and with bombs. Of the 37 Salamanders produced before the end of October 1918, only two were delivered to France, and the war ended before those saw action.
[Davis, Mick ''Sopwith Aircraft''; Crowood Press, Marlborough England, 1999 ] Whether the Salamander counts in more modern parlance as a
fighter-bomber
A fighter-bomber is a fighter aircraft that has been modified, or used primarily, as a light bomber or attack aircraft. It differs from bomber and attack aircraft primarily in its origins, as a fighter that has been adapted into other roles, wh ...
or as a dive bomber depends on the definition of "dive". It had armoured protection for the pilot and a fuel system to attack at low level, but lacked dive brakes for a vertical dive.
Heavy casualties resulting from air-to-ground attack on trenches set the minds of senior officers in the newly formed RAF against dive bombing. So not until 1934 did the
Air Ministry
The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State ...
issue specifications for both land-based and
aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...
-based dive bombers. The RAF cancelled its requirement and relegated the
Hawker Henley
The Hawker Henley was a British two-seat target tug derived from the Hawker Hurricane that was operated by the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.
Design and development
In 1934 Air Ministry Specification P.4/34 was issued which calle ...
dive bomber to other roles, while the Fleet Air Arm's
Blackburn Skua
The Blackburn B-24 Skua was a carrier-based low-wing, two-seater, single-radial engine aircraft by the British aviation company Blackburn Aircraft. It was the first Royal Navy carrier-borne all-metal cantilever monoplane aircraft, as well as ...
was expected to do double duty: as a fighter when out of reach of land-based fighter support, and as a dive bomber. It had dive brakes that doubled as flaps for carrier landings.
[Brown, Eric, CBE, DCS, AFC, RN., William Green and Gordon Swanborough. "Blackburn Skua and Roc." ''Wings of the Navy, Flying Allied Carrier Aircraft of World War Two''. London: Jane's 1980. ] The
Hawker Henley
The Hawker Henley was a British two-seat target tug derived from the Hawker Hurricane that was operated by the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.
Design and development
In 1934 Air Ministry Specification P.4/34 was issued which calle ...
had a top speed only slower than the
Hawker Hurricane
The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s which was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by ...
fighter from which it was derived. The American and Japanese navies and the
Luftwaffe
The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...
chose vertical dive bombers whose low speed had dire consequences when they encountered modern fighters.
[
]
World War I
The Royal Naval Air Service
The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was the air arm of the Royal Navy, under the direction of the Admiralty's Air Department, and existed formally from 1 July 1914 to 1 April 1918, when it was merged with the British Army's Royal Flying Corps t ...
developed dive bombing as a tactic against Zeppelin hangars and formed and trained a squadron at Manchester for this task. On 8 October 1914, a Sopwith Tabloid
The Sopwith Tabloid and Sopwith Schneider (floatplane) were British biplanes, originally designed as sports aircraft and later adapted for military use. They were among the first successful types to be built by the Sopwith Aviation Company. The ...
with two bombs attacked a hangar at Düsseldorf after a dive to . On 14 November 1914, four Avro 504
The Avro 504 was a First World War biplane aircraft made by the Avro aircraft company and under licence by others. Production during the war totalled 8,970 and continued for almost 20 years, making it the most-produced aircraft of any kind tha ...
s attacked the Zeppelin factory at Friedrichshafen
Friedrichshafen ( or ; Low Alemannic: ''Hafe'' or ''Fridrichshafe'') is a city on the northern shoreline of Lake Constance (the ''Bodensee'') in Southern Germany, near the borders of both Switzerland and Austria. It is the district capital (''Kre ...
on Lake Constance
Lake Constance (german: Bodensee, ) refers to three Body of water, bodies of water on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps: Upper Lake Constance (''Obersee''), Lower Lake Constance (''Untersee''), and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, ca ...
, diving from to to ensure hits. As Zeppelins were tethered close to stores of hydrogen, results were often spectacular.
The first use of dive bombing by the RFC, which had been urging its pilots to drop bombs at heights below in order to hit within of the target since February 1915, was later that year. On 27 November 1915, Lieutenant Duncan Grinnell-Milne
Captain Duncan William Grinnell-Milne (6 August 1896 – November 1973) was an English First World War pilot credited with six confirmed aerial victories, a prisoner of war who escaped from German captivity, a flying ace, and an author. Initia ...
arrived in his Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2c
The Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 was a British single-engine tractor two-seat biplane designed and developed at the Royal Aircraft Factory. Most of the roughly 3,500 built were constructed under contract by private companies, including establish ...
over railway marshalling yards near Lys in Northern France, to find the target already crowded by other bombers. He dived from to before releasing his bombs. A few weeks later, Lieutenant Arthur Gould dived to just to hit buildings near Arras.
The Royal Flying Corps developed strafing
Strafing is the military practice of attacking ground targets from low-flying aircraft using aircraft-mounted automatic weapons.
Less commonly, the term is used by extension to describe high-speed firing runs by any land or naval craft such ...
with diving aircraft using both machine guns and small bombs as a deliberate tactic. At the Battle of Cambrai on 20 November 1917, 320 Mark IV tank
The Mark IV (pronounced ''Mark four'') was a British tank of the First World War. Introduced in 1917, it benefited from significant developments of the Mark I tank (the intervening designs being small batches used for training). The main improv ...
s and 300 aircraft, mostly Sopwith Camel
The Sopwith Camel is a British First World War single-seat biplane fighter aircraft that was introduced on the Western Front in 1917. It was developed by the Sopwith Aviation Company as a successor to the Sopwith Pup and became one of the b ...
s and Airco DH 5s with bombs, were used to suppress artillery and machine guns. The cost in pilots was very high, with casualties on some days reaching 30 percent. The initial impact at Cambrai was highly successful. The staff officer to the Royal Tank Corps
The Royal Tank Regiment (RTR) is the oldest tank unit in the world, being formed by the British Army in 1916 during the First World War. Today, it is the armoured regiment of the British Army's 12th Armoured Infantry Brigade. Formerly known as t ...
Lieutenant-Colonel J. F. C. Fuller
Major-General John Frederick Charles "Boney" Fuller (1 September 1878 – 10 February 1966) was a senior British Army officer, military historian, and strategist, known as an early theorist of modern armoured warfare, including categorising pr ...
published findings which were later taken up by Heinz Guderian
Heinz Wilhelm Guderian (; 17 June 1888 – 14 May 1954) was a German general during World War II who, after the war, became a successful memoirist. An early pioneer and advocate of the " blitzkrieg" approach, he played a central role in t ...
to form the basis for the blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg ( , ; from 'lightning' + 'war') is a word used to describe a surprise attack using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, together with close air su ...
tactics of using dive bombers with tanks employed by the Germans in 1939–40.[Corum, James S. ''The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and German Military Reform'', Modern War Studies. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. 1992..]
Second Lieutenant William Henry Brown, a Canadian from British Columbia serving with the RFC and flying a Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5a, made the first attack on a vessel on 14 March 1918, destroying an ammunition barge on a canal at Bernot near St Quentin, diving to to release his bombs. He was awarded the Military Cross
The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level pre-1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth countries.
The MC i ...
for this and other exploits. Brown's technique was emulated by other British squadrons. But the heavy casualties to unprotected pilots cast a pall over the results and influenced RAF thinking for 20 years.[
]
Interwar era
The Royal Flying Corps was initially impressed with the potential of the dive bomber, but was aware of its suicidal nature. It ran a series of tests at the Armament Experimental station at Orfordness
Orford Ness is a cuspate foreland shingle spit on the Suffolk coast in Great Britain, linked to the mainland at Aldeburgh and stretching along the coast to Orford and down to North Weir Point, opposite Shingle Street. It is divided from the m ...
in Suffolk. Sopwith Camel
The Sopwith Camel is a British First World War single-seat biplane fighter aircraft that was introduced on the Western Front in 1917. It was developed by the Sopwith Aviation Company as a successor to the Sopwith Pup and became one of the b ...
s and Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5as were used in early 1918 to dive bomb targets from various heights, with different bombs and with and without the use of the Aldis gunsight Aldis may refer to:
* Aldis (name), a masculine given name
* Aldis SRL, a Romanian meat and smallgoods processing company
*Aldis lamp, a type of signal lamp
* ALDIS (Austrian Lightning Detection & Information System) a lightning detection sensor net ...
, which had been invented in 1916 to aid pilots to calculate the deflection required to hit a traversing enemy aircraft. In principle, it obviated the need for a vertical dive. The results showed that a vertical dive into the wind sighting along the top of rather than through the sight was best. But they were not considered good enough to justify the expected casualties. The Royal Air Force, which took over both army and naval aviation in April 1918, retired its Sopwith Salamander
The Sopwith TF.2 Salamander was a British ground-attack aircraft of the First World War designed by the Sopwith Aviation Company which first flew in April 1918. It was a single-engined, single-seat biplane, based on the Sopwith Snipe fighter, w ...
dive bombers at the end of the war.
Colonel, later General, Billy Mitchell
William Lendrum Mitchell (December 29, 1879 – February 19, 1936) was a United States Army officer who is regarded as the father of the United States Air Force.
Mitchell served in France during World War I and, by the conflict's end, command ...
arrived in France with the first US Army and Air Force units soon after 6 April 1917 and began to organise the US Army Air Force flying French Salmson 2
The Salmson 2 A.2, (often shortened to Salmson 2) was a French biplane reconnaissance aircraft developed and produced by Salmson to a 1916 requirement. Along with the Breguet 14, it was the main reconnaissance aircraft of the French army in 1918 ...
s, a spotter plane. The later Salmson 4
The Salmson 4 AB.2, or SAL-4 AB.2 (AB.2 - Reconnaissance Bomber two-seat) was a two-seat bomber designed and built in France during the closing stages of World War I.
Design and development
A variant of the Salmson 2, the Salmson 4 was essential ...
was to be a ground attack and dive bomber, but production was cancelled at the end of the war. Mitchell became a strong advocate of dive bombers after witnessing British and French aerial attacks. Mitchell by now assistant chief of the Air Service United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
arranged tests with captured German and obsolete US ships in June and July 1921 and repeated over the next two years using Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5as as dive bombers and Handley Page O/400
The Handley Page Type O was a biplane bomber used by Britain during the First World War. When built, the Type O was the largest aircraft that had been built in the UK and one of the largest in the world. There were two main variants, the Handl ...
s and Martin NBS-1
The Martin NBS-1 was a military aircraft of the United States Army Air Service and its successor, the Army Air Corps. An improved version of the Martin MB-1, a scout-bomber built during the final months of World War I, the NBS-1 was ordered ...
s as level bombers carrying bombs of different weights up to . The SMS ''Ostfriesland'' was sunk and so later were the USS ''Alabama'', USS ''Virginia'' and USS ''New Jersey''.
Opposite conclusions were drawn by the RAF and USAS, from two very different tests regarding the usefulness of dive bombers, with the RAF concluding that the cost in pilots was too high to justify the results and the USAS considering it as a potent anti-ship weapon. Both naval staffs opposed the view taken by the respective airmen.[Brown, David. ''Warship Losses of World War II''. Arms and Armour, London, 1990. .]
In 1919, United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...
(USMC) pilot Lt. L. H. Sanderson mounted a rifle in front of the windshield of his Curtiss JN-4
The Curtiss JN "Jenny" was a series of biplanes built by the Curtiss Aeroplane Company of Hammondsport, New York, later the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company. Although the Curtiss JN series was originally produced as a training aircraft for th ...
(a training aircraft) as an improvised bomb sight
A bombsight is a device used by military aircraft to drop bombs accurately. Bombsights, a feature of combat aircraft since World War I, were first found on purpose-designed bomber aircraft and then moved to fighter-bombers and modern tactical a ...
, loaded a bomb in a canvas bag attached to the aircraft's underside, and made a solo attack in support of USMC troops trapped by Haitians during the United States occupation of Haiti
The United States occupation of Haiti began on July 28, 1915, when 330 U.S. Marines landed at Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after the National City Bank of New York convinced the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, to take control of ...
. Sanderson's bomb hit its target and the raids were repeated. During 1920, Sanderson familiarised aviators of USMC units on the Atlantic coast with dive bombing techniques. Dive bombing was also used during the United States occupation of Nicaragua
The United States occupation of Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933 was part of the Banana Wars, when the US military invaded various Latin American countries from 1898 to 1934. The formal occupation began in 1912, even though there were various other ...
.
As aircraft grew more powerful, dive bombing became a favoured tactic particularly against small targets such as ships.[ The ]United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
overcame its hostility to Mitchell's findings and deployed the Curtiss F8C Falcon
The Curtiss Falcon was a family of military biplane aircraft built by the American aircraft manufacturer Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company during the 1920s. Most saw service as part of the United States Army Air Corps as observation aircraft ...
biplane from 1925 on carriers, while the Marine Corps operated them from land bases as the Helldiver, a name later reused by Curtiss for other dive bombers.
The Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...
ordered the Heinkel He 50
The Heinkel He 50 was a German World War II-era dive bomber, originally designed for the Imperial Japanese Navy. Serving in ''Luftwaffe'' prewar dive-bombing units, the He 50 served until almost the end of World War II as a night harassment bomb ...
in 1931 as a floatplane and carrier-based dive bomber and embarked some on new carriers from 1935 in a developed form as the Heinkel He 66
The Heinkel He 50 was a German World War II-era dive bomber, originally designed for the Imperial Japanese Navy. Serving in ''Luftwaffe'' prewar dive-bombing units, the He 50 served until almost the end of World War II as a night harassment bomb ...
, from which the Aichi D1A
The Aichi D1A or Navy Type 94/96 Carrier Bomber ( Allied reporting name "Susie") was a Japanese carrier-based dive bomber of the 1930s. A single-engine, two-seat biplane based on the Heinkel He 50, the D1A was produced by Aichi for the Imperia ...
was further developed in Japan. The Luftwaffe confiscated a Chinese export shipment and ordered more.[Corum, James. ''The Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War, 1918–1940''. Kansas University Press. 1997. ]
Navies increasingly operated carriers, which had a limited number of aircraft available for attack, each with only a small bomb load. Targets were often likely to be a small or fast-moving and the need for accuracy made dive bombers essential.[
]Ernst Udet
Ernst Udet (26 April 1896 – 17 November 1941) was a German pilot during World War I and a ''Luftwaffe'' Colonel-General (''Generaloberst'') during World War II.
Udet joined the Imperial German Air Service at the age of 19, and eventually ...
, a German First World War ace, persuaded Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...
to buy two Curtiss Hawk II
The Curtiss P-6 Hawk is an American single-engine biplane fighter introduced into service in the late 1920s with the United States Army Air Corps and operated until the late 1930s prior to the outbreak of World War II.
Design and development
Th ...
s for the newly reformed Luftwaffe
The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...
. Udet, then a stunt pilot, flew one in aerobatic displays during the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games
The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-sp ...
. Due to his connections with the Nazi party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
, he became the development director of the Ministry of Aviation
The Ministry of Aviation was a department of the United Kingdom government established in 1959. Its responsibilities included the regulation of civil aviation and the supply of military aircraft, which it took on from the Ministry of Supply.
...
, where he pushed for dive bomber development.[
Dive bombing would allow a low-cost ]Luftwaffe
The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...
to operate effectively in the tactical role. Against small targets, a single-engine dive bomber could achieve four times the accuracy at one tenth of the cost of a four engine heavy bomber, such as the projected Ural bomber
The Ural bomber was the initial aircraft design program/competition to develop a long-range bomber for the Luftwaffe, created and led by General Walther Wever in the early 1930s. Wever died in an air crash on June 3, 1936, and his successor Alber ...
, and it could reach the battlefield well ahead of field artillery. Soon the Luftwaffe issued a contract for its own dive bomber design, resulting in the Junkers K 47
The Junkers K 47 was a two-seater fighter aircraft developed in Sweden by the Swedish subsidiary of the German firm Junkers during the late 1920s, a civil development of which was designated the A 48.
Design and development
Designed to meet a ...
, which, following extensive trials, would in turn result in the Junkers Ju 87
The Junkers Ju 87 or Stuka (from ''Sturzkampfflugzeug'', "dive bomber") was a German dive bomber and ground-attack aircraft. Designed by Hermann Pohlmann, it first flew in 1935. The Ju 87 made its combat debut in 1937 with the Luftwaffe's Con ...
''Stuka'' (a contraction of ''Sturzkampfflugzeug'', literally "diving combat airplane").
Several early Junkers Ju 87 dive bombers, which first flew in on 13 September 1935, were shipped secretly from Germany to Spain to assist General Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco Bahamonde (; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general who led the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War ...
's Nationalist rebels in the Spanish Civil War. Several problems appeared, including the tendency of the fixed undercarriage to sink into soft ground and an inability to take-off with a full bomb load. Condor Legion
The Condor Legion (german: Legion Condor) was a unit composed of military personnel from the air force and army of Nazi Germany, which served with the Nationalist faction during the Spanish Civil War of July 1936 to March 1939. The Condor Legio ...
experience in Spain demonstrated the value of dive bombers especially on the morale of troops or civilians unprotected by air cover.[Weal, John. ''Junkers Ju 87 Stukageschwader 1937–41''. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 1997. .] The aircraft did not encounter opposing modern fighters, which concealed its vulnerability from the Luftwaffe
The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...
. Udet was impressed with the Stuka's performance in Spain, so he ordered that the Junkers Ju 88
The Junkers Ju 88 is a German World War II ''Luftwaffe'' twin-engined multirole combat aircraft. Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works (JFM) designed the plane in the mid-1930s as a so-called ''Schnellbomber'' ("fast bomber") that would be too fast ...
medium bomber should also be retrofitted as a dive bomber. He also insisted, against the advice of Ernst Heinkel
Dr. Ernst Heinkel (24 January 1888 – 30 January 1958) was a German aircraft designer, manufacturer, ''Wehrwirtschaftsführer'' in Nazi Germany, and member of the Nazi party. His company Heinkel Flugzeugwerke produced the Heinkel He 178, th ...
, that the Heinkel He 177
The Heinkel He 177 ''Greif'' (Griffin) was a long-range heavy bomber flown by the ''Luftwaffe'' during World War II. The introduction of the He 177 to combat operations was significantly delayed, by both problems with the development of its ...
bomber, ordered in November 1937, be able to dive bomb. Lack of a sufficiently powerful, reliable powerplant fatally compromised its utility, it never performed in the dive bomber role, and the requirement was eventually dropped.
Some 23 Breda Ba 65
The Breda Ba.65 was an Italian all-metal single-engine, low-wing monoplane used by ''Aviazione Legionaria'' during the Spanish Civil War and '' Regia Aeronautica'' in the first half of World War II. It was the only Italian ground-attack aircr ...
s were flown by Italian pilots also in support of Nationalist Forces. First flown in 1935, it was a single-seat dive bomber carrying the same bomb load as the Stuka with a speed advantage in level flight.[David, Donald ed, ''The Complete Encyclopaedia of World Aircraft''. Noble and Barnes, New York 1977 .]
As the Royal Navy again took control of the Fleet Air Arm
The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy and is responsible for the delivery of naval air power both from land and at sea. The Fleet Air Arm operates the F-35 Lightning II for maritime strike, the AW159 Wil ...
, it began to receive the Fairey Swordfish
The Fairey Swordfish is a biplane torpedo bomber, designed by the Fairey Aviation Company. Originating in the early 1930s, the Swordfish, nicknamed "Stringbag", was principally operated by the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy. It was also used ...
from 1936 and Blackburn Skua
The Blackburn B-24 Skua was a carrier-based low-wing, two-seater, single-radial engine aircraft by the British aviation company Blackburn Aircraft. It was the first Royal Navy carrier-borne all-metal cantilever monoplane aircraft, as well as ...
s from November 1938. The Skua had a secondary function of intercepting attacks by unescorted long-range bombers. With four 0.303 Browning guns and another rear-facing gun, it was expected to defend against air attack with a top speed of at sea level, which was a comparable low altitude speed with other navies' carrier borne fighters in 1938–39. The Royal Navy's dedicated, pre and early war, fleet fighter was the Gloster Sea Gladiator
The Gloster Gladiator is a British biplane fighter. It was used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) (as the Sea Gladiator variant) and was exported to a number of other air forces during the late 1930s.
Developed private ...
. The Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...
(IJN) Mitsubishi A5M
The Mitsubishi A5M, formal Japanese Navy designation , experimental Navy designation Mitsubishi Navy Experimental 9-''Shi'' Carrier Fighter, company designation Mitsubishi ''Ka''-14, was a Japanese carrier-based fighter aircraft. It was the worl ...
and USN Grumman F3F
The Grumman F3F was a biplane fighter aircraft produced by the Grumman aircraft for the United States Navy during the mid-1930s. Designed as an improvement on the F2F, it entered service in 1936 as the last biplane to be delivered to any Amer ...
were nominally faster than the Skua but this speed was achieved at much higher altitude; at low altitudes the Skua was quite comparable in speed and was also better armed. The Swordfish was also capable of operating as a dive-bomber
A dive bomber is a bomber aircraft that dives directly at its targets in order to provide greater accuracy for the bomb it drops. Diving towards the target simplifies the bomb's trajectory and allows the pilot to keep visual contact through ...
and in 1939 HMS ''Glorious'' used her Swordfish for a series of dive-bombing trials, during which 439 practise bombs were dropped at dive angles of 60, 67 and 70 degrees, against the target ship HMS ''Centurion''. Tests against a stationary target showed an average error of from a release height of and a dive angle of 70 degrees. Tests against a manoeuvring target showed an average error of from a drop height of and a dive angle of 60 degrees. The Fairey Albacore
The Fairey Albacore is a single-engine biplane torpedo bomber designed and produced by the British aircraft manufacturer Fairey Aviation. It was primarily operated by the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm (FAA) and was heavily used during the Second ...
was also designed to act as a dive bomber and was used extensively in this role during World War Two.
The British Air Ministry
The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State ...
issued Specification 4/34 in 1934 for a ground attack aircraft with dive bombing capability. The Hawker Henley
The Hawker Henley was a British two-seat target tug derived from the Hawker Hurricane that was operated by the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.
Design and development
In 1934 Air Ministry Specification P.4/34 was issued which calle ...
was a two-seat version of the Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...
-winning Hawker Hurricane
The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s which was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by ...
. It was fast at almost at sea level and in a dive, but development was delayed when Hurricane development took priority. Just 200 were built and it was relegated to target towing. The RAF ordered the US-built Vultee A-31 Vengeance
The Vultee A-31 Vengeance was an American dive bomber of World War II, built by Vultee Aircraft. A modified version was designated A-35. The Vengeance was not used operationally by the United States, but was operated as a front-line aircraft by ...
in 1943, but it too was similarly relegated to target towing after a brief operation period in secondary theatres.
The Curtiss SBC Helldiver
The Curtiss SBC Helldiver was a two-seat scout bomber and dive bomber built by the Curtiss-Wright Corporation. It was the last military biplane procured by the United States Navy. Delivered in 1937, it became obsolete even before World War II ...
was a biplane dive bomber that had been taken aboard the in 1934, but it was slow at . Fifty ex-US Navy examples were flown to Halifax, Nova Scotia
Halifax is the capital and largest municipality of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the largest municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of the 2021 Census, the municipal population was 439,819, with 348,634 people in its urban area. The ...
by Curtiss
Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company (1909 – 1929) was an American aircraft manufacturer originally founded by Glenn Hammond Curtiss and Augustus Moore Herring in Hammondsport, New York. After significant commercial success in its first decade ...
pilots and embarked on the French aircraft carrier ''Béarn'' in a belated attempt to help France, which surrendered whilst they were mid-Atlantic. Five airframes left behind in Halifax later reached the RAF, which quickly relegated them to the status of ground instructional airframes for the training of mechanics.
The Japanese introduced the Aichi D3A
The Aichi D3A Type 99 Carrier Bomber ( Allied reporting name "Val") is a World War II carrier-borne dive bomber. It was the primary dive bomber of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and was involved in almost all IJN actions, including the at ...
Val monoplane as a successor to the biplane Aichi D1A
The Aichi D1A or Navy Type 94/96 Carrier Bomber ( Allied reporting name "Susie") was a Japanese carrier-based dive bomber of the 1930s. A single-engine, two-seat biplane based on the Heinkel He 50, the D1A was produced by Aichi for the Imperia ...
in 1940, with trials aboard the carriers '' Kaga'' and '' Akagi''. It was to prove a potent weapon against surface ships.
Only the Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...
learned from the Battle of Cambrai (1917)
The Battle of Cambrai (Battle of Cambrai, 1917, First Battle of Cambrai and ''Schlacht von Cambrai'') was a British attack in the First World War, followed by the biggest German counter-attack against the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) sinc ...
in using dive bombers in conjunction with tanks. The writings of Britain's Colonel J. F. C. Fuller
Major-General John Frederick Charles "Boney" Fuller (1 September 1878 – 10 February 1966) was a senior British Army officer, military historian, and strategist, known as an early theorist of modern armoured warfare, including categorising pr ...
a staff officer and Basil Liddell-Hart
Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart (31 October 1895 – 29 January 1970), commonly known throughout most of his career as Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, was a British soldier, military historian and military theorist. He wrote a series of military histor ...
(a military journalist) propounded the concept of mobile tank forces supported by ground-attack aircraft creating a breakthrough. These were eagerly studied by the German army officer Heinz Guderian
Heinz Wilhelm Guderian (; 17 June 1888 – 14 May 1954) was a German general during World War II who, after the war, became a successful memoirist. An early pioneer and advocate of the " blitzkrieg" approach, he played a central role in t ...
, who created the combination of Panzer
This article deals with the tanks (german: panzer) serving in the German Army (''Deutsches Heer'') throughout history, such as the World War I tanks of the Imperial German Army, the interwar and World War II tanks of the Nazi German Wehrmacht, ...
s and dive bombers that later proved so potent in Poland and France. The Ju 87 ''Stuka'' could be used as aerial artillery moving far ahead of the main forces with Panzers to smash enemy strong points without waiting for the horse-drawn artillery to catch up. It was central to the concept of Blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg ( , ; from 'lightning' + 'war') is a word used to describe a surprise attack using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, together with close air su ...
which required close co-ordination between aircraft and tanks by radio.[
The RAF had chosen the single-engined ]Fairey Battle
The Fairey Battle is a British single-engine light bomber that was designed and manufactured by the Fairey Aviation Company. It was developed during the mid-1930s for the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a monoplane successor to the Hawker Hart and Hi ...
and the twin-engined Bristol Blenheim
The Bristol Blenheim is a British light bomber aircraft designed and built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company (Bristol) which was used extensively in the first two years of the Second World War, with examples still being used as trainers until ...
as its tactical bombers. Both were level bombers with similar bomb-loads and entered service in 1937. The US Army Air Corps
The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical ri ...
(USAAC) adopted the Douglas A-20 Havoc
The Douglas A-20 Havoc (company designation DB-7) is an American medium bomber, attack aircraft, Intruder (air combat), night intruder, night fighter, and reconnaissance aircraft of World War II.
Designed to meet an Army Air Corps requirement f ...
, first flying in January 1939, for a similar role, although originally ordered by France. Many were also supplied to the Soviet Air Force, which also used the Ilyushin Il-2
The Ilyushin Il-2 (Russian: Илью́шин Ил-2) is a ground-attack plane that was produced by the Soviet Union in large numbers during the Second World War. The word ''shturmovík'' (Cyrillic: штурмовик), the generic Russian term ...
Sturmovik ground-attack aircraft in huge numbers. None of these were dive bombers. No Allied Air Force operated a modern dive bomber at the outbreak of the Second World War, although both the Royal Navy and the US Navy had shipboard dive bombers.
European theatre
On 10 April 1940, 16 British Royal Navy Blackburn Skua
The Blackburn B-24 Skua was a carrier-based low-wing, two-seater, single-radial engine aircraft by the British aviation company Blackburn Aircraft. It was the first Royal Navy carrier-borne all-metal cantilever monoplane aircraft, as well as ...
s flying at extreme range from the naval air station at Hatston in Orkney
Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...
led by Lieutenant Commander William Lucy sank the German cruiser ''Königsberg'' in Bergen harbour, whilst trying to prevent the German invasion of Norway
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
. On the German side Stukas augmented or replaced artillery support for the Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...
's lightly armed parachute and airborne troops.
The invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...
(September to October 1939) and the Battle of France
The Battle of France (french: bataille de France) (10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign ('), the French Campaign (german: Frankreichfeldzug, ) and the Fall of France, was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of French Third Rep ...
(May to June 1940) saw the Stuka used to devastating effect. German ''blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg ( , ; from 'lightning' + 'war') is a word used to describe a surprise attack using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, together with close air su ...
'' tactics used dive bombers in place of artillery to support highly mobile ground troops. The British Expeditionary Force had set up strong defensive positions on the west bank of the Oise River
The Oise ( ; ) is a river of Belgium and France, flowing for from its source in the Belgian province of Hainaut, south of Chimay. It crosses the border with France after about . It flows into the Seine at Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a north-wester ...
to block rapidly advancing German armour. Stukas quickly broke the defences, and the Wehrmacht forced a crossing long before German artillery arrived.
On 12/13 May 1940, Stukas flew 300 sortie
A sortie (from the French word meaning ''exit'' or from Latin root ''surgere'' meaning to "rise up") is a deployment or dispatch of one military unit, be it an aircraft, ship, or troops, from a strongpoint. The term originated in siege warfare. ...
s against strong French defensive positions at the Battle of Sedan
The Battle of Sedan was fought during the Franco-Prussian War from 1 to 2 September 1870. Resulting in the capture of Emperor Napoleon III and over a hundred thousand troops, it effectively decided the war in favour of Prussia and its allies, ...
. This enabled German forces to make a fast and unexpected breakthrough of the French lines, eventually leading to the German advance to the Channel and the cutting off of much of the Allied army.
The skies over Sedan also showed the Stuka's weakness when met with fighter opposition; six French Curtiss H-75
The Curtiss P-36 Hawk, also known as the Curtiss Hawk Model 75, is an American-designed and built fighter aircraft of the 1930s and 40s. A contemporary of the Hawker Hurricane and Messerschmitt Bf 109, it was one of the first of a new generation ...
s attacked a formation of unescorted Ju 87s and shot down 11 out of 12 without loss. The Stuka was even more vulnerable to the Hawker Hurricane
The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s which was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by ...
with its speed edge and eight machine guns, which it first met over France and then in larger numbers in the Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...
(July to October 1940). Losses were such that the Luftwaffe rapidly withdrew Stukas from operations over the United Kingdom. A similar fate befell unescorted RAF Fairey Battle
The Fairey Battle is a British single-engine light bomber that was designed and manufactured by the Fairey Aviation Company. It was developed during the mid-1930s for the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a monoplane successor to the Hawker Hart and Hi ...
s over France.
The Stuka had 7.92mm machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) a ...
s or 20mm
20 mm caliber is a specific size of popular autocannon ammunition. It is typically used to distinguish smaller-caliber weapons, commonly called "guns", from larger-caliber "cannons" (e.g. machine gun vs. autocannon). All 20 mm cartridges ha ...
cannon
A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...
s mounted in the wings. Some were modified to destroy tanks with heavy calibre, 37mm ''Bordkanone'' BK 3,7 autocannons mounted in gun pod
A gun pod is a detachable pod or pack containing machine guns, autocannons, revolver cannons, or rotary cannons and ancillaries, mounted externally on a vehicle such as a military aircraft which may or may not also have its own guns.
Description ...
s below the wings. They were very successful in this role in the early days (1941) of Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
before the Red Army Air Force
The Soviet Air Forces ( rus, Военно-воздушные силы, r=Voyenno-vozdushnyye sily, VVS; literally "Military Air Forces") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces. The Air Forces ...
countered with modern fighters, such as the Yakovlev Yak-1
The Yakovlev Yak-1 (russian: Яковлев Як-1) was a Soviet fighter aircraft of World War II. The Yak-1 was a single-seat monoplane with a composite structure and wooden wings; production began in early 1940.Angelucci and Matricardi 1978 ...
and later the Yakovlev Yak-3
The Yakovlev Yak-3 (Russian: Яковлев Як-3) was a single-engine, single-seat World War II Soviet fighter. Robust and easy to maintain, it was much liked by both pilots and ground crew.Glancey 2006, p. 180. One of the smallest and lighte ...
.
The most successful dive-bomber pilot, Hans-Ulrich Rudel
Hans-Ulrich Rudel (2 July 1916 – 18 December 1982) was a German ground-attack pilot during World War II and a post-war neo-Nazi activist.
The most decorated German pilot of the war and the only recipient of the Knight's Cross with G ...
, made 2,530 sorties. He contributed to the sinking of the Soviet battleship ''Marat'' at Kronstadt
Kronstadt (russian: Кроншта́дт, Kronshtadt ), also spelled Kronshtadt, Cronstadt or Kronštádt (from german: link=no, Krone for "crown" and ''Stadt'' for "city") is a Russian port city in Kronshtadtsky District of the federal city of ...
on 23 September 1941 using bombs. Later, flying a tank-buster Stuka with 20mm cannon, he claimed over 100 Soviet tanks destroyed, mostly at the Battle of Kursk
The Battle of Kursk was a major World War II Eastern Front engagement between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union near Kursk in the southwestern USSR during late summer 1943; it ultimately became the largest tank battle in history. ...
in July 1943. The Ju 87G ''Kanonenvogel'', equipped with two 37mm BK 3,7 anti-tank guns, as suggested by Rudel, proved to be a lethal weapon in skilled hands. In the Soviet counter-offensive, Operation Kutuzov
Operation Kutuzov was the first of the two counteroffensives launched by the Red Army as part of the Kursk Strategic Offensive Operation. It commenced on 12 July 1943, in the Central Russian Upland, against Army Group Center of the German '' He ...
(July to August 1943), which concluded Kursk, the Luftwaffe claimed 35 tanks destroyed in a single day. Rudel co-wrote a post-war book about his experiences and consulted with the US Air Force.
When Italy joined the war (10 June 1940) on the Axis side, the Regia Aeronautica
The Italian Royal Air Force (''Regia Aeronautica Italiana'') was the name of the air force of the Kingdom of Italy. It was established as a service independent of the Royal Italian Army from 1923 until 1946. In 1946, the monarchy was abolis ...
shipped Breda Ba.65
The Breda Ba.65 was an Italian all-metal single-engine, low-wing monoplane used by ''Aviazione Legionaria'' during the Spanish Civil War and '' Regia Aeronautica'' in the first half of World War II. It was the only Italian ground-attack aircr ...
s to North Africa for use against the British but they also proved vulnerable. By February 1941 British fighters had shot down most of the Italian planes. In Morocco on 11 November 1942, American Curtiss P-40 Warhawk
The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk is an American single-engined, single-seat, all-metal fighter and ground-attack aircraft that first flew in 1938. The P-40 design was a modification of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk which reduced development time an ...
s shot down 15 Ju 87Ds in one encounter.
The United States Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
took delivery of a few North American P-51 Mustang
The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter aircraft, fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II and the Korean War, among other conflicts. The Mustang was designed in April 1940 by a team ...
s from a British order but, as there were no funds to buy more fighters, they were modified as dive bombers with a new wing and with dive brakes. First flown in October 1942 as the North American A-36 Apache
The North American A-36 (listed in some sources as "Apache" or "Invader", but generally called Mustang) was the ground-attack/dive bomber version of the North American P-51 Mustang, from which it could be distinguished by the presence of rectang ...
, they arrived in Morocco in April 1943 to assist with driving the Afrika Korps
The Afrika Korps or German Africa Corps (, }; DAK) was the German expeditionary force in Africa during the North African Campaign of World War II. First sent as a holding force to shore up the Italian defense of its African colonies, the ...
out of Africa. The aircraft was very fast at low altitude. It was also accident-prone, achieving the highest casualty-rate during training of any USAAF aircraft and was officially restricted to no more than a 70-degree dive. The Apache did not fly with the RAF, but served with US squadrons in Sicily, Italy and, by late summer of 1943, was based in India for use over Burma and China. It proved to be an excellent dive-bomber and a good fighter: one ace in Italy shot down five German fighters.
The Royal Navy's Fairey Swordfish
The Fairey Swordfish is a biplane torpedo bomber, designed by the Fairey Aviation Company. Originating in the early 1930s, the Swordfish, nicknamed "Stringbag", was principally operated by the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy. It was also used ...
and Fairey Albacore
The Fairey Albacore is a single-engine biplane torpedo bomber designed and produced by the British aircraft manufacturer Fairey Aviation. It was primarily operated by the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm (FAA) and was heavily used during the Second ...
torpedo-dive bombers and Blackburn Skua
The Blackburn B-24 Skua was a carrier-based low-wing, two-seater, single-radial engine aircraft by the British aviation company Blackburn Aircraft. It was the first Royal Navy carrier-borne all-metal cantilever monoplane aircraft, as well as ...
fighter-bombers were replaced by Fairey Barracuda
The Fairey Barracuda was a British carrier-borne torpedo and dive bomber designed by Fairey Aviation. It was the first aircraft of this type operated by the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm (FAA) to be fabricated entirely from metal.
The Barracuda ...
torpedo-dive bombers, which made repeated diving attacks on the German battleship ''Tirpitz'' which lay protected by torpedo net
Torpedo nets were a passive ship defensive device against torpedoes. They were in common use from the 1890s until the World War II, Second World War. They were superseded by the anti-torpedo bulge and torpedo belts.
Origins
With the introduction ...
s in a Norwegian fjord during 1944. On 3 April 1944, in Operation Tungsten
Operation Tungsten was a Second World War Royal Navy air raid that targeted the German battleship ''Tirpitz''. The operation sought to damage or destroy ''Tirpitz'' at her base in Kaafjord in the far north of Norway before she could become ...
, 42 aircraft flying from the carriers HMS ''Victorious'' and HMS ''Furious'' scored 14 hits with and bombs and put the battleship out of action for over two months.
The Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
Armed Forces
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
deployed the Arkhangelsky Ar-2
The Arkhangelsky Ar-2 was a Soviet dive-bomber used in small numbers during World War II. Its design was a refinement of the earlier Russian Tupolev SB.
The design bureau's name (Cyrillic: Архангельский) is transliterated in many w ...
from 1940 to 1944 and the Petlyakov Pe-2
The Petlyakov Pe-2 (russian: Петляков Пе-2) was a Soviet twin-engine dive bomber used during World War II. One of the outstanding tactical attack aircraft of the war,Ethell 1996, p. 152. it also proved successful as a heavy fighter, as ...
from 1941 to 1954.
Pacific theatre
The Vultee Vengeance
The Vultee A-31 Vengeance was an American dive bomber of World War II, built by Vultee Aircraft. A modified version was designated A-35. The Vengeance was not used operationally by the United States, but was operated as a front-line aircraft by ...
was developed in the US as a private venture dive bomber for export. It first flew in March 1941. It had a zero incidence wing, which was perfect for vertical dives as there was no lift from wing or tailplane in a dive. But it had to fly in a nose up attitude to maintain level flight, which made landings difficult. Initial orders were 300 for France, but France fell before they could be delivered. The RAF, with the cancellation of the Hawker Henley
The Hawker Henley was a British two-seat target tug derived from the Hawker Hurricane that was operated by the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.
Design and development
In 1934 Air Ministry Specification P.4/34 was issued which calle ...
and having noted the success of Stukas in Poland, took delivery instead. It was considered too vulnerable to German fighters for use in Europe or North Africa, but large numbers flew in Burma from March 1943. It flew close support for General William Slim
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
's Burma campaign bombing Japanese supply routes, bridges and artillery. It operated in the Royal Australian Air Force
"Through Adversity to the Stars"
, colours =
, colours_label =
, march =
, mascot =
, anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...
and Indian Air Force
The Indian Air Force (IAF) is the air arm of the Indian Armed Forces. Its complement of personnel and aircraft assets ranks third amongst the air forces of the world. Its primary mission is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial w ...
as well as the RAF. Some were held back for the United States Army Air Forces after the attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...
, but did not see combat.
Both the Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...
(IJN) and the United States Navy invested considerable effort on dive bombers. Japan started the war with a very good design, the carrier-borne
Carrier-based aircraft, sometimes known as carrier-capable aircraft or carrier-borne aircraft, are naval aircraft designed for operations from aircraft carriers. They must be able to launch in a short distance and be sturdy enough to withstand ...
Aichi D3A
The Aichi D3A Type 99 Carrier Bomber ( Allied reporting name "Val") is a World War II carrier-borne dive bomber. It was the primary dive bomber of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and was involved in almost all IJN actions, including the at ...
("Val"). As the war progressed, the design became outdated due to its limited speed, due in part to the limited horsepower of its power plant and to the greater drag of its fixed main landing gear
Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin ...
(a shortcoming shared by the Stuka).
The main American dive bomber, the Douglas SBD Dauntless
The Douglas SBD Dauntless is a World War II American naval scout plane and dive bomber that was manufactured by Douglas Aircraft from 1940 through 1944. The SBD ("Scout Bomber Douglas") was the United States Navy's main carrier-based scout/div ...
, had similar performance to the D3A Val. From December 1942, the Dauntless was replaced with the faster, but more complex and trouble-prone Curtiss SB2C Helldiver
The Curtiss SB2C Helldiver is a dive bomber developed by Curtiss-Wright during World War II. As a carrier-based bomber with the United States Navy (USN), in Pacific theaters, it supplemented and replaced the Douglas SBD Dauntless. A few survi ...
. Both American aeroplanes were ubiquitous, with 6,000 Dauntlesses and over 7,000 Helldivers built. Both the SBD and D3A were used at Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Re ...
on 7 December 1941. The Japanese sent 54 D3A Vals carrying bombs to attack parked aircraft at Wheeler Field
Wheeler Army Airfield , also known as Wheeler Field and formerly as Wheeler Air Force Base, is a United States Army post located in the City & County of Honolulu and in the Wahiawa District of the Island of O'ahu, Hawaii. It is a National Histo ...
and Ford Island
Ford Island ( haw, Poka Ailana) is an islet in the center of Pearl Harbor, Oahu, in the U.S. state of Hawaii. It has been known as Rabbit Island, Marín's Island, and Little Goats Island, and its native Hawaiian name is ''Mokuumeume''. The isl ...
. A flight of 18 Dauntlesses from arrived over Pearl Harbor just as the Japanese attacked. Seven were shot down and many others destroyed on the ground at Marine Corps Air Station Ewa
Marine Corps Air Station Ewa (MCAS Ewa) was a United States Marine Corps air station that was located west of Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. The base was hit during the attack on Pearl Harbor, and later served as the hub for all Mar ...
At the Battle of the Coral Sea, Dauntlesses sank the light carrier ''Shoho'' and damaged the fleet carrier ''Shokaku'' together with Douglas TBD Devastator
The Douglas TBD Devastator was an American torpedo bomber of the United States Navy. Ordered in 1934, it first flew in 1935 and entered service in 1937. At that point, it was the most advanced aircraft flying for the Navy and possibly for any na ...
torpedo bombers.
On 5 April 1942, the heavy cruisers and were leaving Colombo, Ceylon
Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo m ...
to join the British Eastern Fleet
The East Indies Station was a formation and command of the British Royal Navy. Created in 1744 by the Admiralty, it was under the command of the Commander-in-Chief, East Indies.
Even in official documents, the term ''East Indies Station'' was ...
, but had been spotted by Japanese reconnaissance aircraft. They were attacked by a large number of Aichi D3As and both were sunk.[Brown 1975, p.66] On 9 April 1942 the Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
aircraft carrier escorted by the destroyer were attacked by more than 32 Aichi D3As and both were sunk shortly before eight defending RN FAA Fairey Fulmar
The Fairey Fulmar is a British carrier-borne reconnaissance aircraft/fighter aircraft which was developed and manufactured by aircraft company Fairey Aviation. It was named after the northern fulmar, a seabird native to the British Isles. The F ...
s, of 806 Squadron, could reach them. The Fulmars shot down four D3As and damaged two while losing two Fulmars to the more numerous D3As.
At the Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The U.S. Navy under Adm ...
on 4 June 1942, after most of the torpedo bombers had been shot down without a single hit, Dauntlesses from and found four Japanese carriers, in the vulnerable stage of refuelling and rearming aircraft for a second strike. The Combat Air Patrol
Combat air patrol (CAP) is a type of flying mission for fighter aircraft. A combat air patrol is an aircraft patrol provided over an objective area, over the force protected, over the critical area of a combat zone, or over an air defense area, ...
of formidable Mitsubishi A6M Zero
The Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" is a long-range carrier-based aircraft, carrier-based fighter aircraft formerly manufactured by Mitsubishi Aircraft Company, a part of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and was operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy from 19 ...
s had been drawn away, chasing torpedo bombers and escorting fighters, leaving a clear sky. ''Soryu'' and ''Kaga'' were ablaze within six minutes, while ''Akagi'', hit only once, suffered fatal damage as the single bomb ignited fuel and bombs in the hangar.
Later on 4 June, ''Yorktown'' and ''Enterprise'' dive bombers inflicted fatal damage on the fourth Japanese carrier '' Hiryu''. Within hours the Imperial Japanese Navy had lost four of its aircraft carriers and many experienced naval airmen, both of which Japan would have difficulty in replacing. Further follow-up raids by SBDs and SB2Us from ''Midway'' and SBDs from ''Yorktown'', ''Enterprise'' and on 5–6 June sank the IJN heavy cruiser ''Mikuma'' and heavily damaged her sister ship ''Mogami'' and two escorting destroyers.
The United States Army Air Forces took a version of the Dauntless with a different tailwheel tire and no arrester hook as the Douglas A-24 Banshee
The Douglas SBD Dauntless is a World War II American naval scout plane and dive bomber that was manufactured by Douglas Aircraft from 1940 through 1944. The SBD ("Scout Bomber Douglas") was the United States Navy's main carrier-based scout/dive ...
. In crates headed for the Philippines, they were diverted to Australia and operated from Charters Towers
Charters Towers is a rural town in the Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia. It is by road south-west from Townsville on the Flinders Highway. During the last quarter of the 19th century, the town boomed as the rich gold deposits under ...
in Queensland. The Banshee was unable to contend with Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero
The Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" is a long-range carrier-based aircraft, carrier-based fighter aircraft formerly manufactured by Mitsubishi Aircraft Company, a part of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and was operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy from 19 ...
s. On 26 July 1942, just seven Banshees were sent to intercept a Japanese convoy supplying forces occupying New Guinea. Six were shot down.[
The Japanese ]Yokosuka D4Y
The is a two-seat carrier-based dive bomber developed by the Yokosuka Naval Air Technical Arsenal and operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy from 1942 to 1945 during World War II. Development of the aircraft began in 1938. The first D4Y1 was co ...
Suisei, code-name Judy, began to replace the Vals after a very troublesome development on surviving larger Japanese carriers from March 1943. With a sleek fuselage, retracting landing gear and a powerful licensed Daimler-Benz 601
The Daimler-Benz DB 601 was a German aircraft engine built during World War II. It was a liquid-cooled inverted V12, and powered the Messerschmitt Bf 109, Messerschmitt Bf 110, and many others. Approximately 19,000 601's were produced befor ...
engine, it could outpace pursuing Grumman F4F Wildcat
The Grumman F4F Wildcat is an American carrier-based fighter aircraft that entered service in 1940 with the United States Navy, and the British Royal Navy where it was initially known as the Martlet. First used by the British in the North Atlan ...
s. To maximise speed and range, the Japanese had dispensed with armour protection and self-sealing fuel tanks, which proved to be very costly when the US Navy deployed the new ''Essex''-class aircraft carriers, which each carried 36 of the faster Grumman F6F Hellcat
The Grumman F6F Hellcat is an American Carrier-based aircraft, carrier-based fighter aircraft of World War II. Designed to replace the earlier Grumman F4F Wildcat, F4F Wildcat and to counter the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero, it was the United St ...
s. The Battle of the Philippine Sea
The Battle of the Philippine Sea (June 19–20, 1944) was a major naval battle of World War II that eliminated the Imperial Japanese Navy's ability to conduct large-scale carrier actions. It took place during the United States' amphibious invas ...
on 19–20 June 1944 was a failure in terms of Japanese carriers hit, but the losses of Vals and Judies and their crews were enough to destroy the Japanese navy's ability to strike by air ever again.[Shores, Christopher. ''Duel for the Sky: Ten Crucial Battles of World War II''. Grub Street, London 1985. ]
Henceforward attacks were mostly confined to kamikaze
, officially , were a part of the Japanese Special Attack Units of military aviators who flew suicide attacks for the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, intending to d ...
. The Japanese were now on the defensive. Japan's industrial output dropped from a peak in 1942, while that of the US increased by a quarter in two years from 1942 to 1944. Japanese wartime production of bombers of all types was just 16% of the US output.
Decline
When the RAF were attempting to stop the Panzer
This article deals with the tanks (german: panzer) serving in the German Army (''Deutsches Heer'') throughout history, such as the World War I tanks of the Imperial German Army, the interwar and World War II tanks of the Nazi German Wehrmacht, ...
s of Erwin Rommel
Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel () (15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944) was a German field marshal during World War II. Popularly known as the Desert Fox (, ), he served in the ''Wehrmacht'' (armed forces) of Nazi Germany, as well as servi ...
's Afrika Korps
The Afrika Korps or German Africa Corps (, }; DAK) was the German expeditionary force in Africa during the North African Campaign of World War II. First sent as a holding force to shore up the Italian defense of its African colonies, the ...
in early 1942, a lack of dive bombers proved to be an impediment. However, the British Government's Chief Scientist, Henry Tizard
Sir Henry Thomas Tizard (23 August 1885 – 9 October 1959) was an English chemist, inventor and Rector of Imperial College, who developed the modern "octane rating" used to classify petrol, helped develop radar in World War II, and led the fir ...
, formed a panel of experts, which recommended using rockets. A rocket has a much flatter trajectory than a bomb, allowing it to be launched with reasonable accuracy from a shallow dive, and could be fitted on existing aircraft. The RAF used them on Hurricanes in June 1942 against Rommel's tanks. The British Army had used rockets against low-flying bombers during the Battle of Britain by enlarging the tube from to and fitting high explosive warheads; it became an anti-tank weapon. The more powerful Hawker Typhoon
The Hawker Typhoon is a British single-seat fighter-bomber, produced by Hawker Aircraft. It was intended to be a medium-high altitude interceptor, as a replacement for the Hawker Hurricane, but several design problems were encountered and i ...
, originally developed as a fighter, proved even more effective, carrying eight RP-3
The RP-3 (from Rocket Projectile 3 inch) was a British air to ground rocket projectile introduced during the Second World War. The "3 inch" designation referred to the nominal diameter of the rocket motor tube. The use of a warhead gave rise to ...
rockets and producing a similar effect to a naval destroyer's broadside.
On 23 May 1943, a Fairey Swordfish
The Fairey Swordfish is a biplane torpedo bomber, designed by the Fairey Aviation Company. Originating in the early 1930s, the Swordfish, nicknamed "Stringbag", was principally operated by the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy. It was also used ...
destroyed ''U-752'' in the Atlantic, and five days later, a Lockheed Hudson
The Lockheed Hudson is a light bomber and coastal reconnaissance aircraft built by the American Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. It was initially put into service by the Royal Air Force shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War and prim ...
of RAF Coastal Command
RAF Coastal Command was a formation within the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was founded in 1936, when the RAF was restructured into Fighter, Bomber and Coastal Commands and played an important role during the Second World War. Maritime Aviation ...
sank ''U-755'' in the Mediterranean, using specialised rockets fitted with iron spikes which were fired at a shallow angle into the sea. Once under water, they curved upwards and punctured the pressure hull below the waterline, disabling or sinking the submarine.
Caltech
The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
developed the High Velocity Aircraft Rocket
The High Velocity Aircraft Rocket, or HVAR, also known by the nickname Holy Moses, was an American unguided rocket developed during World War II to attack targets on the ground from aircraft. It saw extensive use during both World War II and the ...
(HVAR) with a warhead for the US Navy. It was rushed to Europe for use on D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...
and later used by Navy aircraft in the Pacific. By January 1943, American pilots who had been flying in RAF Eagle Squadron
The Eagle Squadrons were three fighter squadrons of the Royal Air Force (RAF) formed with volunteer pilots from the United States during the early days of World War II (circa 1940), prior to America's entry into the war in December 1941.
Wit ...
s before the US entered the war, converted from Supermarine Spitfire
The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. Many variants of the Spitfire were built, from the Mk 1 to the Rolls-Royce Grif ...
s to Republic P-47 Thunderbolt
The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt is a World War II-era fighter aircraft produced by the American company Republic Aviation from 1941 through 1945. It was a successful high-altitude fighter and it also served as the foremost American fighter-bombe ...
s to form the USAAF 4th Air Fighter Group. At over unladen, one of the biggest single engine fighter bombers of the war, it could carry ten HVARs.
By late 1944, the RAF was able to hit stationary targets with greater accuracy from greater heights inflicting far more damage with less risk. On 12 November 1944, two Tallboy bombs were dropped by Avro Lancaster
The Avro Lancaster is a British Second World War heavy bomber. It was designed and manufactured by Avro as a contemporary of the Handley Page Halifax, both bombers having been developed to the same specification, as well as the Short Stirlin ...
s from and hit the German battleship ''Tirpitz'' at supersonic speeds, sinking it. The Tallboy was developed by Vickers
Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. It was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by Edward Vickers and his father-in-law, and soon became famous for casting church bells. The company went public in 18 ...
designer Barnes Wallis
Sir Barnes Neville Wallis (26 September 1887 – 30 October 1979) was an English engineer and inventor. He is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the Royal Air Force in Operation Chastise (the "Dambusters" raid) to attack ...
who followed it up with the even larger Grand Slam
Grand Slam most often refers to:
* Grand Slam (tennis), one player or pair winning all four major annual tournaments, or the tournaments themselves
Grand Slam or Grand slam may also refer to:
Games and sports
* Grand slam, winning category te ...
earthquake bomb which was used to destroy railway viaduct
A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide ...
s and bridges, targets that could previously only be damaged in diving attacks. Wallis also designed a bomb that bounced across water to destroy the Eder and Moehne dams, which needed to be hit repeatedly at the same spot under water to be breached but had nets to protect against torpedoes.[Holland, James. Dam Busters Bantam Press, 2012 ]
Pilots in the Pacific later developed a technique of skip bombing
Skip bombing was a low-level bombing technique independently developed by several of the combatant nations in World War II, notably Italy, Australia, Britain, Soviet Union and the United States. It allows an aircraft to attack shipping by skippi ...
which required flying at low level and dropping a spherically nosed conventional bomb onto the sea, at a shallow angle, which then bounced back into the air.
Although new aircraft could still dive towards their targets, they were no longer optimised for steep diving attacks. Through the pioneering efforts by the Luftwaffe's Fritz X
Fritz X was the most common name for a German guided anti-ship glide bomb used during World War II. ''Fritz X'' was the world's first precision guided weapon deployed in combat and the first to sink a ship in combat. ''Fritz X'' was a nickname us ...
and the USAAF
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
's Azon
AZON (or Azon), from "azimuth only", was one of the world's first guided weapons, deployed by the Allies and contemporary with the German Fritz X.
Officially designated VB-1 ("Vertical Bomb 1"), it was invented by Major Henry J. Rand and Thoma ...
, controlled-trajectory bombs evolved into today's smart bombs
A guided bomb (also known as a smart bomb, guided bomb unit, or GBU) is a precision-guided munition designed to achieve a smaller circular error probable (CEP).
The creation of precision-guided munitions resulted in the retroactive renaming of ...
. A bomb can be dropped far from a target's air defences using a guidance system to hit the target, ensuring greater accuracy and minimising risk to the crew.
Jet engine
A jet engine is a type of reaction engine discharging a fast-moving jet of heated gas (usually air) that generates thrust by jet propulsion. While this broad definition can include rocket, Pump-jet, water jet, and hybrid propulsion, the term ...
s allowed higher speeds which made "toss bombing
Toss bombing (sometimes known as loft bombing, and by the U.S. Air Force as the Low Altitude Bombing System, LABS) is a method of bombing where the attacking aircraft pulls upward when releasing its bomb load, giving the bomb additional time of f ...
" possible, a reverse dive bombing method where an aircraft snaps up from low altitude as a bomb is released, throwing it upwards like a shot put
The shot put is a track and field event involving "putting" (throwing) a heavy spherical ball—the ''shot''—as far as possible. The shot put competition for men has been a part of the modern Olympics since their revival in 1896, and women's ...
.
References
Bibliography
* Angelucci, Enzo and Paolo Matricardi. ''World Aircraft: World War II.'' Volume II (Sampson Low Guides). Maidenhead, UK: Sampson Low, 1978. .
* Brown, David. ''Warship Losses of World War II.'' Arms and Armour, London, Great Britain, 1990. .
* Brown, David. ''Carrier Fighters.'' MacDonald and Janes, London, Great Britain, 1975. .
* Casey, Louis. ''Naval Aircraft.'' Secaucus, New Jersey: Chartwell Books Inc. 1977. .
* Uses recently translated Japanese sources.
* Smith, Peter C. ''Dive Bomber!''. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1982. .
* Worth, Richard. ''Fleets of the World War II.'' New York: Da Capo Press, 2001. .
External links
"Dive Bombing at Target Assures Accuracy"
April 1933, ''Popular Mechanics'' – early article on dive bombing
'' "Diving Artillery" '', April 1942, Popular Science
illustrated article on the basics of dive bombing
''Tail Brake on Do-217E Controls Its Diving Speed'', November 1942, Popular Science
''Flight'' article of 1940
*
{{Authority control
Bomber aircraft